An electronic casino game provides a player of such a game with a man-machine interface (“MMI”). Where the electronic casino game is embodied in an electronic machine of a type that is commonly encountered in land-based casinos, the MMI comprises a combination of a video display screen and one or more push buttons that are used by the player to control the progress of the game. If the casino game is an online game, the MMI comprises a video display screen with one or more icons displayed thereon that are individually activatable by means of a pointing device such as a mouse, a touchpad or the like.
By their very nature, electronic casino games require a MMI that is simple enough to be used by inexperienced players. Such a simple interface is, however, problematic for game developers, as it inhibits the addition of new features to the electronic casino game without increasing the complexity of the interface. The game developers are thus required to compromise between simplicity of the interface and increased functionality and control of the casino game.
Many games that are played at land-based or online casinos are repetitive in nature and consist, generally, of repeated cycles of the following steps: making a wager, generating one or more random events, determining whether or not the wager is successful as a function of the generated random events, collecting the wager if unsuccessful, and paying the wager according to predetermined odds if the wager is successful. Examples of such repetitive games are roulette, blackjack, video poker and slots.
Such repetition can rapidly become tedious to a player of the game and can quickly lead to boredom with consequent loss of interest in the game. This is particularly so in casino games, where the outcome of the game depends on pure chance, and is not dependent on strategy, such as, for example, the game of slots.